1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system for receiving television product placement advertisement associated teletext contact data and for a viewer to obtain on demand the teletext contact data in-hand using a television remote control device.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently product placement is the promotion of branded goods and services within the context of a television show or a movie (i.e. in a theater, or on a television set), rather than as an explicit advertisement. The brand names of product placement are visible to the viewer. Through product placement, advertisers hope that viewers will take note of the products used by the cast members, and thereby consider using the products themselves.
Whenever a product placement advertisement (ad) appears on a television (TV) and the viewer is interested in following up on the promoted product, today he must either remember the product, which generally displays no contact or detailed information, or scribble down the product name on a piece of paper. The problem then is to locate where the viewer can find the product of interest. In today's electronically networked world there are internet search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, etc., to help locate the products of interest. Even this electronic search-and-locate method is somewhat awkward, because a person is presented with many choices regarding the searched-and-found product and hence must further filter the presented search results for the precise information that the person is looking for.
The current invention uses a readily available feature of TV signals, namely teletext. Generally in the USA, teletext is not greatly used, as it is in Europe and other global regions. In the USA closed captioning (CC) is commonly available on most TV sets and all TV set-top boxes. Closed captioning is a specific use of teletext in the USA, i.e. as a government mandated aid to deaf TV viewers.
Product placement advertisement information, for example contact data, pricing, detailed descriptions, etc. are embedded by the current invention in a TV (or movie) signal, wherein the product placement advertisement appears as associated teletext data.
Rainsford teaches in U.S. Pat. No. 7,158,676 ('676) an interactive system that provides a video program with associated interactive content, which relates to the content of the displayed video program. The '676 patent does not teach retrieving and storing the interactive content in a television's remote control device, nor does it teach the use of teletext for embedding the interactive content of the video. The '676 patent teaches that a viewer interacts immediately with pertinent video content and its associated site on the internet.
Bates et al. teaches in U.S. Pat. No. 6,774,908 ('908) an interactive system that provides a video program with associated interactive content, which relates to the content of the displayed video program. The '908 patent teaches the programmatic locating of images in the stream of video frames, after initial image identification, and insertion of pertinent associated data. The '908 patent does not teach retrieving and storing the interactive content in a television's remote control device, nor does it teach the use of teletext for embedding the interactive content of the video. The '908 patent teaches that a viewer interacts immediately with pertinent video content and its associated site on the internet.